Qué es ser un profesional mayor

Chapter 9

Organizational Skills

A homecare provider needs to be well organized. First, there is a lot to do in a short time. Second, in many situations, it is important to talk with several people who may be involved in a consumer’s care. This would include the consumer’s social worker, doctor, and family members. Sometimes there are other caregivers. Then, it becomes important to coordinate your activities and hours with theirs.

This chapter discusses essential organizational skills that will help you become an effective caregiver. These skills include:

• Scheduling tasks

• Documenting your work

Scheduling Tasks

The hours assigned by IHSS social workers assumes that the person doing the tasks works in an efficient manner. To complete your work within the time authorized will, therefore, require you to organize the tasks and work steadily.

A task grid is available to help you and the consumer schedule what tasks need to be completed on which days. You can also use the task grid to summarize the number of hours per day that you worked. When it is time to complete the timesheet for the pay period, you can simply copy the hours from the task grid. Each task grid covers a two-week pay period. Task grids are also helpful if there is more than one provider. The consumer can indicate on the task grid which provider should do which tasks and how many total hours

Organizational Skills

the number of hours worked to the number listed on the task grid. A sample of the task grid is included in this handbook in Chapter 6.

Ask the consumer how to perform the tasks. Some people will want things done in a very particular way, while others are more flexible about how things are done. You may find it helpful to make notes on the consumer’s preferences for task completion.

Documenting your Work

Documenting the work that you do for a consumer protects you in case your efforts are ever questioned by the consumer, the social worker or the county’s quality assurance staff. If you use the task grid to check off each task as you complete it, and you and the consumer sign for the hours and tasks completed each day, the consumer can easily determine how many hours you worked during the pay period. As long as the number of hours you worked is within the hours assigned by the consumer, there should be no question about the number of hours you should be paid for. If there are multiple providers, however, you need to confirm that the total assigned hours for all providers does not exceed the consumer’s authorized hours. You may need to remind the consumer not to sign for more than the assigned hours for each provider. If the consumer does that, one of you will not be paid for some of the hours you worked.

Documenting your work also protects you if a consumer asks you to do unauthorized tasks. A consumer should only ask you to perform services that the social worker has authorized. If the consumer checks unauthorized services for you to do, you should remind him/her that those services were not authorized and you cannot be paid for performing them. If the consumer insists, discuss his/her request with the consumer’s social worker. This will give the social worker a chance to explain the limitations on IHSS services to the consumer. There are so many new things to learn when the consumer first receives IHSS that consumers sometimes do not understand all of the rules.

Organizational Skills

Besides documenting hours and tasks, it is also important to document any medicines that you have reminded the consumer to self-administer. Some IHSS consumers take a lot of medicine. Typically, a prescription specifies the number of times per day a pill is taken and whether it needs to be taken with food or not. The combination of multiple pills, number of times per day and conditions for taking them can pose quite a challenge to administer safely. A medicine log that summarizes all of this can be useful in tracking the medicines as they are administered. Use of pill boxes that are labeled by day of the week and time of the day can also help in tracking medicine administration.

It is also important to document any significant changes in the consumer’s condition. As you get to know the consumer better, you will notice many details about his/her physical abilities. Whether his/her condition improves or deteriorates, it is important to document the changes and remind the consumer to share these with the social worker. The goal is to help the consumer be as independent as possible. If his/her health improves and the consumer becomes stronger, the consumer may require less help and can take pride in becoming more independent. If his/her health deteriorates, the consumer will need more care. When you document these changes and remind the consumer to share this information with the social worker, the social worker can adjust the authorized hours to reflect changes in the consumer’s condition.

Finally, you can build trust with the consumer by documenting all

expenditures made on his/her behalf. If you shop for the consumer, keep a notebook of the amount of money you have been given for an errand on a particular date. Bring back the receipt and change, and write the amount of change in the notebook. Staple the receipt to the page.

Chapter 10

10. Setting and Maintaining